WordPress has changed the world of web design. Since it is free, open source, and really awesome it has become the most used blogging system on the net. It has allowed people to get websites up and running faster and cheaper than ever before.

Are your posts too cheap?
There are some who would argue this is a bad thing, however. They say that allowing anyone anywhere to post on whatever they want only fills internet with a lot of useless crap. People don’t need to be as choosy with what they put on their blogs because it is so easy to do. Back in the day adding or changing something on your website was hard, took a lot of time, and was very costly. This meant that you would only put up stuff that you felt was really important and you would make sure you did a good job of posting it.

One of these arguments comes from Smashing Magazine in this article. Basically, the article states that normal WordPress blogs are boring because they use the same formatting on every post and that once the website is designed, everything falls into that.

Consistency counts.
There is definitely truth to the fact that on a normal WordPress theme the posts look similar. In fact it’s the entire idea behind CSS stylesheets. I for one would say that this is not a bad thing. There are major differences between print and the internet. It’s one of the things my college professor drilled into our heads in web design 101. (While I find his website to be very dull – and it doesn’t use WordPress..there is some truth to what he was trying to say)

Basically there are 2 things involved in any blog post:
1: The content: What the post is about
2: The design: What the post looks like

Content is King.
I would argue that the most important part of any blog post is the content: what the post is about. Being a flash designer for several years I learned from project after project that you can make something that looks really cool and people will be pretty impressed. But if it only looks nice there is no real need for people to come back ’cause they’ve seen it already. The thing that will keep people coming back to your website is the content.

Sometimes, less is more.
Sometimes that means the design has to take a backseat. Think of all the crap at WalMart where the packaging costs more than the thing you bought. And you need the jaws of life to get the product out of the package! How annoying is that? The same rule applies on the net in this case. You don’t want the coolness of your design to cover up the content.

Finding a balance.
If your target audience primarily lives on their iPhones, you will need to make sure that your site will show up properly on the iPhone. Or if they get their information from RSS feeds. These are cases where too much design can get in the way. However, if your audience is primary design-people who have 40″ iMac screens, design might be everything! There are a lot of different things to consider.

The line between content and design is something that can be debated and probably differs from website to website. The key is finding the right balance for you. Think of your target audience. Consider your content. Think of how much time you have on your hands. Every situation will be different.